She wants strong, and stable, and warm. She wasted too many years of her short life fighting for men who fought over her, risked her life, claimed her like property.
Sam doesn't want her blood or her magic or her mind reading. He wants her wrapped up in his arms while they drink cold beer on the porch of her house and watch the stars that you can't see near the neon-lit bar. He wants her beside him in the honey-warm afternoon sun, shut up in the office going over accounts and timesheets and budgets, though hands tend to wander up the skin bared by her shorts and she can't help running her fingers through his hair while they review delivery schedules.
Bill had been novel, an introduction to the deep waters of the heart and how quickly they could drag you down even when your brain told you to think again. Eric had been exciting, even more dangerous than Bill and suave as could be, exotic and wild. Quinn, more like Sam, but she'd closed that door.
Sam is stability, protection – not that she can't protect herself, but it's nice to have someone watching her back – and a still, endless calm. Patient as hell, too – he waited for her, was there for her all these years while men had come and gone and come back and left again. Sam is warm, like the sunlight she can't get enough of, a balm rather than a danger to her fey side.
That's not to say there isn't a little bit of wild to Sam Merlotte. She may not be able to shift like he can, but she can follow, and she's surprised how little convincing it takes for her to join the ranks of the many Bon Temps folks who have done less-than-wholesome things out in the deepest parts of the woods. And getting to see Sam buck naked every time he shifts back? That's a treat more than one Bon Temps woman would pay to see, and she gets to see it almost daily, for free.
But the best part about Sam? Seeing the look in his eyes. The one when their eyes meet, the one even other people describe to her. It's the look of love, her gran would say. The one that doesn't ever want to be looking anywhere else, the one that goes more than surface-deep, the one that shows how he feels for everyone to see. Sometimes it seems like a lot to live up to, but she feels up to the challenge.
Sam's far from perfect, and not quite human, but who is these days?
She thinks Gran would approve.